Permanent Vacation
by Nix Providence
Summary: Some people just aren't lucky enough to live a normal life. I'm one of them. It only took one random second for me to go from where I belonged to a place I'd never wanted to be. Will I ever get back, or is my life changed forever? "SI" "OC/OC pairing" "Rated T for Language and Mild Adult Themes" "Pre-ME1"
1. Chapter 1

My first fanfiction in YEARS...

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**IMPORTANT SPECIAL THANKS THING**

**Special thanks to TheRev28 for being awesome. Read his things.**

**Special thanks also to Iyrsiiea for indirectly inspiring me to start this. Read her things too.**

**And a really, **_**really**_** big special thanks to everyone at the Aria's Afterlife forum. Read the things of everyone there while you're at it.**

**Just don't tell them I sent you.**

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_**I disclaim Mass Effect and all other stuffs that go along with it. I also disclaim any other registered stuffs referred to in this work of nonprofit fanfiction. I simply love Mass Effect so much that I wish to insert a dude vaguely based off of myself into its universe so that he can have radical adventures. Is that too much to ask? Please don't eat my face off for it!**_

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Somewhere, a universe stands marked by burning twinkles and entities that swallow light. In its folds, a galaxy turns in a swirling pattern and awaits the day when a greater force will tear it apart. Until that fateful event, life sustains itself within the galaxy's trappings. Moving about between two and four hundred billion stars via an intricate system of objects known as Mass Relays, races of tiny, insignificant beings dither about in hopes of placating their desires as civilizations. They live, they love, they war, they pay, and they die.

Such is the wheel of life.

In this galaxy, known as the Milky Way to some, the better part of the inhabitants bases its association out of the Citadel. An enormous relic left behind by those that came before, the Citadel serves as a center of government and cultural hub for most of the galaxy's races. These races have come together to form the Citadel Council and its member races. At the beginning of our story, the Council is comprised the three most dominant races, guiding the other races by controlling the galactic economy and enforcing laws for the supposed betterment of all existence.

All races willing to follow the Council's way are welcome on the Citadel, a fact bolstered by the station's population of approximately thirteen million. This massive population is kept in line by the local police operation, known as Citadel Security Services, or C-Sec. With over two hundred thousand constables patrolling the station in search of threats to public safety, C-Sec is renowned for its abilities in keep the station safe for all of its citizens, and being assigned to its ranks is indeed a feat of prestige.

Alas, it was one such prestigious man, a balding human with the unfortunate job of patrolling a beat through of some of the deepest and most unsavory alleys on the entire station, who became the first person to see a boy standing frozen with a look of pure terror on his face.

The boy was blond with blue eyes, the former a dye job and latter a paternal trait. The former could be told by the black roots clearly evident at the base of the boy's hairline. The latter wasn't actually evident at all. I only know it because I was the boy.

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**Permanent Vacation**

Chapter 1 – Hold Your Breath, Count to One

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"Hey, kid," the C-Sec cop said in my direction. His boots clapped on the cold metal tract that comprised the floor beneath us. He eventually made it all the way up to me, and yet I hadn't budged. My eyes, along with every other fiber of my being, were too busy being fixated on what was above me. The cop followed my gaze, probably expecting to see something to aptly explain my petrified expression. Instead, he just found the typical grayish-thistle colored expanse that typically served as the Citadel's sky. Along it sat four enormous arms, each one holding what amounted to a city. These, along with the fifth arm that the boy and the cop were standing on, made up what were known as the Wards. Each ward arm held what basically amounted to a city. There were five in total, Zakera, Tayseri, Kithoi, Bachjret, and a fifth that was somehow able to be both Shalta and Aroch Ward at the same time.

Anyway, the cop failed to see anything that really impressed him, so he looked back down to me. I, being the moron I was, hadn't strayed an inch from where I'd been. My eyes were drying out by this point, but I was too afraid to blink. Thoughts and possibilities were tumbling through my head at speeds that boggle my mind to this day. I was frazzled, no doubt. You'd have been frazzled too if you'd just popped up on the Citadel with no rhyme or reason.

…What do I mean by that? It's pretty self-explanatory, honestly.

"Kid? You alright?" the man continued to try and get my attention. He snapped next to my ear, waved his hand in front of my face, and even gave a high-pitched whistle. Nothing could stir me from gazing up at the rest of the Citadel like it was telling me the darkest secrets of existence.

Eventually, after about a minute of wondering what the world he could do, the cop finally decided to man up and do the reasonable thing. He poked me in the side. Now, call me ticklish, but poking me in the side is a sure-fire way to get me to react. I jumped back a good two feet and readied myself for anything. Until this point, I had been ignoring the man. I hadn't actually known if he was a human or a turian or whatever. Seeing him, however, made me relax just a little.

"Take it easy," he said in a calm fashion as he put his hands out to show that he wasn't holding anything threatening. "What's your name?"

"John," I told him without overthinking it.

"John, my name's Greg," he said, probably in some attempt to make me feel like he was my friend. "What're you doing out here?"

That was one hell of a question and, as you might expect, I didn't have a real answer. Thus, I was really only left with one good option.

"Standing," I gave the most basic and obvious riposte I could think of. Yeah… Not gonna say that I was the brightest crayon in the box, if you know what I mean.

The cop almost laughed, I think, either having liked the joke or having been expecting something more meaningful. Either way, he seemed to accept it. "Well, listen, you should probably be getting home. This isn't the best place to hang around."

"Uh…" I had been about say something dim-witted and suspicious, but was interrupted when the cop suddenly felt the need to lean out and look past me. I turned in tune with his looking, only finding the eventual end of the alley we were standing in. Nonetheless, he passed by and broke into a silent run down the corridor, only stopping to check around the corner before proceeding. Once he'd disappeared, it occurred to me that staying in this place probably wasn't the best idea. If there are beat cops running around and telling kids to go home, then the logical idea would be to make like an Egbert and abscond.

I left the alley via the same way the cop had entered, thinking that it would do me the best in avoiding whatever trouble he had just run off to solve. Unfortunately, before I could so much as mumble "Cool absconding, bro!" to myself, something came stampeding out from the next alley up and noticed me. It was a man in black clothes and a bandana across his face, giving the firm impression that I really was in the wrong place. I thought about taking off, but the guy was on me before I could get my head out of my ass. How he did it was a haze of motion in my mind, but he somehow got me in a choke hold with a gun to my head before I could properly react.

"Don't move, fucker," he cursed at me as his forearm pressed against my throat and his pistol found its place pointed at temple. My body froze, relaxing while at the same time steeling. If self-defense classes and watching too many Hollywood action movies had taught me anything, it was that tensing up or struggling like an idiot never helped anybody being held hostage. Doubly so when the hostage-taker was armed. I needed a clear head and a deep breath.

Not a whole five seconds later, Greg the C-Sec cop came sliding out of the same alley my assailant had. As I did my best to avoid giving the man a reason to shoot me, Greg pulled his own pistol and pointed it our way like a damn cop might.

"C-Sec!" he declared himself loudly with the gun pointed squarely forward. "Don't do it, you moron!"

"Shut up!" my assailant took a step back, which I had to match. "They wanna hang me out to dry? I ain't going down without making a statement!"

"It ain't worth it!" Greg argued, either buying time or genuinely trying to talk the character down. "You didn't even have a reason for me to detain you until you grabbed the kid."

"Yeah? Then why were you following me?"

This was the part where my face slid into a scowl. I'm not sure why, but the prospect of listening to a criminal and a cop argue semantics bored the hell out of me. Definitely took away the adrenaline rush of being taken hostage.

"It's my job. Civilians aren't allowed in this district," Greg informed us. That explained why he told me to move on. "Probably why your boss told you to come out here. Get yourself arrested or killed and he won't have to dispose of the body."

"Man, shut the fuck up!" my assailant turned the gun away from me and towards Greg. That had escalated quickly, but, if anything, it gave me a chance to strike.

It was all a matter of moving while the thug was distracted. I raised my knee, held out my arm, and slumped my head forward. Greg opened his mouth to shout something, but it was too late. All at once, I brought my heel down on top of the thug's foot, jabbed my elbow into his side, and jerked my head back into his face. I did it fast and I did it hard. The thug reeled back, his arm swinging wide just before the pistol went off in a moment of shock.

Still, he was jolted and I had a shot at freedom. I pushed off of the man with my foot and pulled forward, having the luck of him not having grabbed my jacket or anything. Surprisingly, it didn't take a whole lot of effort to break entirely free of his arm, as he pulled it back to his face as things progressed. With my neck free of potential choking, I reached up, got my hands on his pistol, and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. Just like that, he was on the ground, I had the gun, and Greg moved in.

"Don't move, dirtbag!" Greg enforced as he kept his gun trained on the firmly grounded asshole. I, on the other hand, just kind of slumped off the side and leaned against the wall. That was the first time I'd ever had to do that to someone who wasn't just helping me learn. Even then, I'd never actually pulled all of those hits at once. It was kind of disorienting.

As Greg proceeded to call in backup through his omni-tool, I went about composing myself. I had a special routine for helping me get by whenever I got shaken up by something. It was simple. Hold your breath, count to one, and get the fuck over it. Now breathe out. Profit!

With that out of the way, I went back to looking up. There was the Citadel sky, just as hazy and sci-fi as it had been five minutes ago. This time there was a ship flying overhead. Ships overhead, the Citadel, C-Sec, guns…

_I'm in Mass Effect, _my brain finally got around to spelling it out for me. If there were ever a thought that could singlehandedly bring one's sanity into question, then there it was. I couldn't help but hold my breath and count to one again.

_Goddammit,_ I scowled to myself when it didn't work.

"Hopkins!"

The call came from behind where Greg was, and I looked to find a turian jogging over. He wasn't armored, like most C-Sec turians I could remember seeing in the source material. No, he just had on some basic blue and black clothes that would be normal for his race.

"Nice takedown," the turian noted once he'd made it up to where Greg was standing. "Is he unconscious?"

"Not sure," Greg shook his head. "You bring cuffs? I had to use mine on that salarian dealer earlier."

"Of course," the alien reached onto his belt and pulled up what I could only assume were the Mass Effect version of handcuffs. He wasted no time applying them to the thug's wrists, not getting any resistance. In spite of what Greg thought, that guy was definitely knocked out. I didn't kick him in the head because I'm sadistic. I did it to put him down for the count.

"Yeah, this guy's dead weight," the turian noted as he tried to haul the thug up. Placing him back down, the alien looked up to Greg. "Since when do you go for knock-outs?"

"I didn't," the human jerked a thumb at me. The turian perked up, apparently not having noticed me as he was running up. "There should be a car here any minute. I'm gonna have a chat with the kid."

The turian nodded and, with that said, Greg approached me. Biting my lip, I looked away and silently wished that I had something to drink. I could feel it in my bones that this was not going to be a pleasant day. Not by any means.

"Any particular reason you're still hanging around here?" he asked, looking at me like I'm a total idiot. I definitely wouldn't have argued against that idea. Not that I really had anywhere to go if I had run off, that is.

"I dunno," I grimaced, not looking him in the eye. "Aren't you supposed to take my statement or something?"

"Actually, I have you for trespassing on private property, but I wasn't about to chase a kid a stupefied as you for that," he tells me with a suppressed grin. "Also, if you don't hand over that gun, I'll have you for possession of an unregistered firearm as well."

I looked down at the pistol I'd taken from the thug, slightly shocked that I'd forgotten I was holding it. Not saying a word, I handed it to him. I can't forget how awkward that felt. Not only was I stuck in what was supposed to be a completely fictional place, but I was in trouble with the cops as well. My mom would have had a goddamn cow if she'd found out about this.

"So, uh… Do I get to go now?" I asked sheepishly.

"Nope."

"Oh… Dammit."

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**All reviews and criticisms are most welcome! All flames are also welcome! And cake! Cake is welcome as well!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: The author of this story is not actually seventeen.**

**Shout out to all of you fine folks who followed the story and added it to your favorites. Thank you kindly.**

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**Permanent Vacation**

Chapter 2 – Life Goes On

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I couldn't help but feel totally mortified as I rode in the passenger seat of the C-Sec patrol car that was transporting me and the thug to the nearest precinct. The driver was another turian, notable for his kickass black facial markings and his complete silence throughout the trip.

For the record, turian facial markings denote what planet that turian was born on. This one's were the same shape as a certain character from the Mass Effect games, telling me that he was from the homeworld of Palaven.

Turians as a race, for those wondering, were the one of the three Council races. Making up the bulk of the Council's military force, the turians were renowned for their strict discipline, their resolve to get things done, and their strong sense of public service. In appearance, a turian looked like what might be easily explained as the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. They were sharp in figure and tough in build. Then you had their hands and feet, which were notable for the talons that passed for what would be mere fingernails on a human.

Sitting next to one like that gave me chills, to say the least.

It only took about ten minutes for us to arrive at our destination, which was a large building full of people, mostly aliens, moving around and saying things that I didn't care to hear. I had been handcuffed, so I had no choice but to follow as another turian led me through the building. I feel I should note that this particular turian was female. Female turians were a rarity in the games, so seeing one up close was kind of a big moment for me. Unfortunately, our time together was only about two minutes long. She led me through the ground floor, up an elevator, through a hallway, and into a cold, metallic cell. She didn't speak. I was shoved in, and then the door closed with her on the other side of it.

Thus, I was alone.

And there I was. Seventeen years old, wide-eyed, trying not to lay some serious bricks in my pants, and I was in jail. Not just any jail, but C-Sec jail. It seemed preposterous to me, being in Mass Effect and all. You know, you read those weird fanfictions and think "Hey, that might be kinda cool", but then you get there and they throw you in jail because they found you standing in a place they didn't like.

That was my situation. If there was ever a better time in my life for me to just look unto the heavens and give the finger to whatever gods might have been watching, I don't remember it.

Eventually, I found myself sitting on the cell's cot and wondering what was going to become of me. The odds of them releasing me were slim to nil, I guessed. As far as the Mass Effect universe went, I was pretty sure that I had no ID, no credit, no home, no relations, and certainly no job. Hell, I didn't even have some of those back home. They couldn't just let me go. Nope, if I had to guess as to what was going to happen to me, it was going to involve an airlock and me not having a spacesuit. Then they'd probably have some gunship fly up and incinerate my corpse just to be sure.

Meanwhile, beyond my imminent doom, thoughts of my family came to mind. What had happened to them? Well, I guess that had to depend on whatever happened to me back home. Was I dead? Was I in a coma? Had I just vanished? Either way, my mom was going to lose her shit. Would I ever see them again? Maybe, but only if I could escape this weird corner of Hell. Of course, something in the back of my mind couldn't help but tell me that the odds in Vegas of that happening were vaguely three-thousand-seven-hundred-and-twenty to one…

Hold your breath, count to one… Get the fuck over it.

_Piece of shit!_

It hadn't worked again…

I waited in that cell for somewhere between two and four hours, during which I eventually had to pass the time by singing Eighties songs to myself and reciting Carol Burnett skits from memory. I had eventually gotten to the Mama's Family skit where Mama tells Eunice that somebody blew her pilot light out when the door finally opened. This time it was a human man. He had gray hair, a wrinkled face, and a whitened beard that went up to his sideburns and down onto his neck. The expression on his face was easy to read, giving off the vibe that he was already tired of my shit even though I hadn't actually given him any yet.

"C'mon, kid," he said to me with a beckoning gesture.

I got up and joined him, not making much noise as he led me by my still cuffed arms. After another ride in the elevator and a quick walk down another hallway, we arrived in what I can only assume was his office. It was cold and metallic, two features that were starting to become a trend with rooms on the Citadel. At least the chair was nice. It didn't swivel, but it was warm enough for me not to shiver in the face of this grizzled old veteran of several law-breakers like me.

"Well," he said to me in an accent I couldn't trace. "What in God's green Earth were you doing in the industrial district on the one day of the year it isn't actually open?"

Of course, with my sorry ass not actually being a resident of those parts, let alone from that particular plane of existence, I had no idea what he was talking about. Fortunately, my mouth was good at making up shit to get its owner out of trouble.

"I got dropped there by a lousy friend," I lied stupidly. "He led me in there and told me to wait. Never came back."

The cop looked at me with a notable amount of skepticism. "That's it?"

"…Yeah," I actually tried to think of any imaginary details that might be important. "He said he was going to get a ride, and that was about an hour before you picked me up."

"I see," he looked down to his desk and picked up what I believed to be a datapad and began scanning over it. "What was that friend's name?"

"Tunafish."

He looked up at me with a skeptical look that could make a psychologist writhe in his chair. "Tunafish?"

"That's what I knew him by," I kept it up. "If he has a real name, you're not gonna find it on me."

"Alright then," the man shook his head and went back to his datapad. Internally, I cringed. There was no way he had believed that.

There was silence in the room for a few minutes. I took this chance to try and find something about the office that would make it a nice place to work. It was, as I had mentioned before, rather cold. Then again, it might just be cold to me because I come from a hot climate. Temperature aside, I couldn't help but notice that the man's desk had nothing but work stuff on it, and the walls had nothing on them. Didn't this guy have a family? He looked way too old not to. Maybe he kept all of the mementos on his omni-tool or something.

"Okay, let's see what we have here," he finally spoke again after an uncomfortable minute had passed. "You were left in the closed down industrial district of Kithoi Ward shortly after 1300 hours Galactic Standard Time, and you waited there until 1400 hours GST, when you were noticed by Constable Hopkins. Then, according Hopkins's report, you were advised to leave, only to be taken as a hostage by fleeing criminal Norman Hackenbracht, whom, after a short standoff, you managed to personally disarm and neutralize."

My mouth hung open for a second, but I quickly closed it before he could look up to me.

"Does that sound about right to you?"

"Uh… Yes. That about sums it up."

"Very good," he nodded before sweeping his hand over the datapad, which, as I watched, seemed to switch over to a different display. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can get on to whom you actually are."

If I were a cartoon character, this would be the part where I started sweating profusely and took one of those very audible gulps.

"Your name is John Matthew Parker, age of seventeen, son of Linda and Keith Parker back on Earth. She's a hostess, he's a yacht captain, and you live by yourself in your mother's parent's old house Austin. You just graduated high school in upper twenty percent of your class, and your exam scores were in the top ten percent."

My mouth hung open again, and this time I wasn't in the state of mind to fix it. It blew my mind that he knew all of that. I thought I was eons away from home, but then he named my parents, mentioned where I live, and even mentioned my schooling. Did that mean that they were all here? Was it all true? What in blue blazes was going on?!

"Shocked?" he smirked at me. "Well, don't be. We aren't the best police force in the galaxy just because the propaganda says so."

"But… What?" I mumbled through my mounting confusion. He ignored me.

"Now, normally, we'd just toss you on a ship back home and send the fees to your family, but, after a vid call with your father, who was very disappointed in you, it has been decided that you're to remain here on the Citadel and work off your crimes."

"My crimes?" I suddenly found myself incredulous. After all of that insanity, none of which I actually had control of, they were going to accuse me of crimes? Ignorance of the law may not be an excuse, but the boy that lived alone in a big city while his parents were off doing whatever they wanted didn't like to think that way. "Can I ask what those crimes are again, because I think they've gotten a little muddled in all of the shit you've been pouring on me since I walked in here!"

"Don't get fresh with me, sonny!" the man's accent slapped me in the face. I swear, if that guy had any fucks, he failed to give them. "You're in here for trespassing and illegal travel. Now, under normal circumstances, these offenses are taken care of via monetary fines, but, as I said before you tried to go off the deep end there, your father has elected to have you work off the charges instead of paying the fines directly. C-Sec has no qualms with this decision. Thus, you'll start your duties as a sanitation worker-"

"Sanitation?!"

"-at 0400 hours tomorrow. Do you understand, Mr. Parker?"

I sat there on the edge of my seat, staring goddamn bullets into that cop's head like he was a practice target. I thought about jumping over his desk and introducing him to my fist, but, thankfully, better judgment kept my butt where it belonged.

Then, all of the sudden, a thought hit me. I didn't know how I'd gotten into that alley in the first place. The last thing I remembered was opening up a letter I'd gotten in the mail after getting home from a day on the town. Next thing I knew, I was in the alley with nothing for my troubles but an aching head and an afternoon filled with trouble. What if I told this guy that? What would that do? What would that mean? Would he even believe me?

As I wondered all of this, another question came. It wasn't mine, however.

"Do you have an omni-tool?"

"N-No," I snapped back into reality. The man reached down and retrieved a small, transparent disk from a drawer.

"You do now," he handed it to me. I took it wordlessly, unsure what to make of it. "That's my old one. Just put it on the back of your hand and stare at it for a moment."

Having lost my train of thought about my circumstances in the alley, I did as the man said and attached the disk to my left hand. The disk wasn't very firm, so it molded to the shape of my hand without a fuss. I watched it, just like the man said, and, after a moment, a light emerged from it and washed over my face. I flinched as my eyes were blinded momentarily, but I guess it was for a good reason. Seconds later, my forearm found itself cloaked in a totally sci-fi orange hologram. Just like that, all of my aggravation was gone. It was like I was a little kid, and somebody had given me a new toy to stop my whining.

"_Welcome, new user._" read a projection as it popped up from the bizarre module. "_Connecting to C-Sec databases… Verify your identity._"

Sure enough, it brought up my image and a page filled with my personal facts. It still bugged me that C-Sec had my information, but the stuff was all correct nonetheless. Hitting the "_accept_" button, I was then treated to a new display welcoming me to the Aldrin Labs Bluewire omni-tool.

"It still has all the old apps, but I wiped its memory. It's ready for a fresh start," the cop speaks up once I'm done introducing myself to my new gadget. Once I look away and put my arm down, the display vanishes like it was never there. "It still has my old calling address on it, so you might get a message from some old monkey wondering where I am. Just send that my way if you could. That said, I'm sending you the location of the housing that's been arranged for you. Your father was pretty quick on getting that settled. Something tells me he might have been saving up to kick you out anyway."

"Wait… Is that it?" I once again found myself confused and disbelieving at how quickly things were progressing. In less than a day of finding myself thrown into a fiction universe, I'd been held hostage, knocked a man unconscious, arrested, and now had been set up legitimately on the Citadel.

"Pretty much, yeah," he nodded after giving it a little thought. "The location's in your omni-tool's mailbox. I won't say it out loud for your privacy's sake."

I didn't catch on at that precise moment, but he'd totally just made a jab at the fact there were people listening in on our conversation.

"Now then," he straightened up in his chair a little. "Do you need directions out of the building? You're free to go under your own power if you'd like. If not, then I can arrange to have you escorted out, which'll make you look like a proper boob if I do say so myself."

In retrospect, I have no fucking idea what the hell was up with that old guy. One moment he was grouchy, the next he was nice, then, out of nowhere, he was quirky. Maybe that's why they had him tucked away in an office dealing with troublemakers instead of actually enforcing the law. Might also be why he didn't have a family to put pictures up of. Or maybe I'm just totally unreasonable. That's also a possibility.

"I'll… uh… yeah," I said awkwardly before showing myself the door. Thankfully, as a few seconds of observation informed me, we were actually on the ground floor of the station, so it only took backtracking to the elevator and then tracking down the entrance to finally escape the damnable place.

Of course, much to my internal terror, that put me back outside. I was once again exposed directly to the fact that I was on a space station with nothing between the cold vacuum of space and my lungs except a lousy mass effect field. Somehow, I doubted that the $700 aqua leather jacket I was wearing would protect me from the complete lack of atmosphere as my body was flung about the Serpent Nebula or the impact as I smashed into the Destiny Ascension's bulkhead like a mosquito.

Those depressing thoughts aside, I brought up my not-really-new omni-tool by looking at where the disk was on my hand. The display showed me that I had a message, which I checked using a touch interface. Sure enough, it brought up a location. "_553 Block, Bachjret Ward, Giorgio's_" it read.

"Great," I mumbled. I totally knew where that was… _not_. The only idea I could come up with was tracking down a taxi and putting the address into it. Not to suggest that I even knew how to hail a taxi on the Citadel, but it was a better idea than walking. Hell, I didn't even know which ward I was on. As far as I knew, Bachjret was the arm suspended however far over my head, and I'd have to use the Presidium junctions to walk there. Looking up, I could see that the Presidium was just a massive silhouette hanging off in the distance. No way I could walk there in a manageable amount of time, let alone before the time that cop said I had to present myself for my new job.

_Sanitation…_, I couldn't help but shake my head as I started walking down the lane I had come out onto. I'd been thinking about getting a job, but being responsible for public cleanliness hadn't necessarily been on my short list.

It only took a few minutes of walking with my hands tucked into my jacket pockets for me to find a taxi lot, or a rapid-transit station if you want to be like that. Trying my best not to seem awkward, I stood around for a moment to see if I could spy someone else using one. Sure enough, before too long, I spotted a turian and an asari walk up to one. Simply enough, the machine opened its hatch once they were standing next to it. The two climbed in, and the thing flew off not ten seconds later.

Now it was my turn. I won't deny being nervous. If I were lucky, I could set one to drive itself to where I needed to go. If not, then I could only imagine that it was going to be one hell of a learning experience. I hadn't exactly been the best driver back on Earth, where driving didn't usually involve antigravity and whatever was going on above and below the car. Now whoever was controlling my fate wanted to put me in a flight sim with controls I didn't understand… just like that one time in tech-ed class.

Strolling up with my best attempt at looking casual, I placed myself in the same position the turian and asari had, at which the taxi I had chosen followed suit and opened itself up to me. I climbed in with a contented sigh. For some reason, I couldn't believe that had worked. Unfortunately, that meant it was time for the hard part. How in the galaxy was going to get this damn thing to move?

As it turned out, once the hatch had closed, the taxi's internal computer popped up and presented me with a display. Leave it to the Citadel to actually hold the citizenry's hands through things that are probably everyday happenings for them.

"_Welcome to the Citadel Rapid Transit system. Either select a destination or choose manual controls._"

I definitely didn't want manual controls, so that was marked off the list of options immediately. Much to my chagrin, however, there didn't seem to be an option for typing in a destination. I had to pick from a list of what I assumed to be other lots around the station. Fortunately, however, they were named by their location amongst the wards' blocks. All I had to do was find the lot closest to 553 Block in Bachjret Ward and I'd be set! Scrolling through the list, I found such a thing. There was a station at the 550 Block, which sounded close enough to me. I hit the listing for that one and, with a whir, the skycar began to move.

To imagine riding in a skycar, think first of a rollercoaster, or maybe just one of those racecar simulators like they have in big arcades. Now, remove the actual feeling of movement. If you're in the simulator, then there's no force-feedback. Mass effect fields keep the passenger compartment perfectly stable the entire ride—barring hard impacts, of course. If the autopilot's on, then you're just sitting there while the car sweeps through the air like a damn missile. Granted, it doesn't actually move that fast, but you get the idea. It was a damn trippy experience my first time around, _especially_ since I actually had to skip over to the next ward arm. I didn't have my seatbelt on, so there wasn't much stopping me from peering out the window and looking down into the abyss that waited should the seat drop out from under me for whatever reason. If this had been a couple of years earlier, I'd have still had acrophobia. Talk about laying bricks in my pants…

The ride took a good fifteen minutes, half of which was spent with no station beneath me. Still, I arrived safely in the Bachjret 550 Block, at which I felt the need to say a little thank you to whatever higher power was watching over me. Emerging from the car, I found myself in a place that somehow managed to be a different place on the Citadel and yet not look any different than where I had just come from. Looking in every direction, I could vaguely see that some of the landmarks were different, but I honestly couldn't tell which way I needed to go. I knew that it couldn't be too far, but that wouldn't help me much if I went searching in the completely wrong direction and got my butt lost.

Then, as I walked out of the taxi lot, I had one of my relatively few truly insightful moments. I had an omni-tool. Omni-tools had access to the internet, or, rather, the _extranet_. Surely the Citadel would have maps available online, right? It was worth a shot, considering how I wasn't quite comfortable enough with my current situation to just walk up to some alien passerby and ask for directions like a bumpkin.

It only took a few minutes to properly figure out how to access the net with my glowie orange gadget. After that, it was only a matter of tracking down the map. Thankfully, the homepage for the net was a search engine. I typed in the address I'd been given and, in a fashion that was surprisingly similar to how Google Maps would interact when you put a location into its search bar, was shown a mini-map of the 553 Block and the surrounding area. Not really sure what else to do with, I poked what was a mini-map in hopes of it turning into a not-so-mini-map. As hoped, the image grew to take over the whole display. To make things even better, the larger image allowed me to notice that there was a green done standing out from the rest of the plain-colored map.

_Is that me?_, I wondered before looking up in hopes of figuring out how I could apply this map to my current surroundings. There were several markers on the map, most of which seemed to be stores or restaurants. Next to me there was an image of an arrow pointing up. That must have been the rapid transit. Using that, it was only a matter of walking down the right streets until, after twenty long minutes…

"Welcome to Giorgio's!" said an older, overweight man from behind a front counter as I wearily shuffled into his place. Once I'd gotten myself going in the right direction, the place hadn't been that hard to find. There was actually an orange neon sign on the front of the building, the last four letters of which were glitching in and out of existence every couple of seconds.

"You must be the new tenant," the man noted almost proudly as I approached the counter. "Mr. Parker, right?"

I sighed. "Yeah, that's me," the words fell out of my mouth as I propped myself up on the desk and shook the man's hand. "I guess you're Giorgio, then?"

"Me? Nah. Big Man Giorgio's off with his wife having their third kid. I'm his uncle, Donny," he informed me before sitting back down and bringing up a holographic terminal to type on. "Everything's taken care of for you. Your keycard's there on the desk. You've got suite 3, second door on the right. If you have any questions, just ask me. If that's all, though, I've gotta get back to my taxes."

Taxes… I was having the craziest crisis of my life, and that old, fat guy was worrying about his damn taxes. Just a sign that the wheel in the sky was still turning, in spite of the fact that my life had been ruined and I didn't know how to react to it.

Taking the keycard, I solemnly walked away from the front desk and down the only hallway that was visible. There were some stairs leading up to a second story, but I could already see a marker for suite 3 further down the hall. I walked up to it and, swiping the card through a panel on the door, was given access.

'Suite' was a strong word for what was offered to me. In my mind, a suite was a fancy hotel room that rich people stayed in. It would have several bedrooms, more than one bathroom, and a full kitchen. Instead of that lavishness, I got a single room with a kitchenette. There were two small doors on one wall, one presumably the bath and toilet while the other would be a closet. It was furnished, at least, even if everything was rather plain in color. Still, I honestly didn't care. I was so defeated by this point that the sight of a chair with no aliens standing around it was nothing more than an invitation to sit down and not thinking about all of the bullshit life was slinging at me.

I sat on the sofa and sighed again…

"This is so not fucking fair."


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks to all reviewers! I appreciate all your kind words and hope to hear more from you soon!**

###

**Permanent Vacation**

Chapter 3 – Maladjusted

###

My first night on the Citadel went about as well as the first night staying in an unfamiliar place could have. I had trouble sleeping, the food didn't taste as good as I might have hoped, and it took me forever to figure out how the damn TV worked. It wasn't all bad, though. In spite of my unfair situation, some things actually happened to go my way on that first afternoon. There were several delivering food joints close by, and new clothes were actually brought for me by a courier, apparently purchased by my "father" back on Earth.

Speaking of which, I was starting to doubt the whole thing with my father leaving me to rot here. For one thing, my father, while knowing that I still needed to learn what it truly meant to be an adult, was not the sort of man to just leave his only freaking child lightyears away from Earth without so much as a call. I tried to request his calling address from that C-Sec guy I'd dealt with, but the address he used to send me the block number turned out to be one of those "don't respond to this or send messages to this address" addresses.

For another thing, _I was in freaking Mass Effect_ and highly doubted that my father had just magically made the jump with me. Then again, the cop _did_ read off my actual family and history to me, so there was obviously something there. Who was I to question anything? Maybe I had actually lived in Mass Effect the entire time and the life I had before in 2013 was an illusion. I didn't know anymore.

Hold your breath, count to one, and for Pete's sake, get the fuck over it.

Also, even before the clothes arrived for me, I got paid a visit by a C-Sec turian. He was unexpectedly polite as he informed me that they were tracking my movements through my omni-tool and, if I were to remove it in some attempt to hide, I would instantly become wanted. That was going to be my situation until my criminal fines had been paid off. He also told me where I was to report for my first day of sanitation duty in the morning. I was going to be working closer to the far tip of the ward, in and around the 900 Blocks. My orders were to meet someone named Dolis Kraine, so at least I knew what I had to do. He made sure to add that, were I not to show up, I would be taken back to the precinct and shown back to my cell in preparation for a more strenuous way to serve my sentence. He didn't elaborate past that, nor did he need to.

I awoke that morning with a headache and the need for some caffeine. Thankfully, I had managed to track down my bank account, courtesy of a miraculously still-functioning Wells Fargo. It had some money in it, but not nearly enough to pay any fines. With a little direction from Donny, I'd managed to go out while I still had the chance and buy some necessities. Food, fresh toiletries, a towel, and coffee were at the top of the list. There was a coffee maker in the kitchenette, thank God. Starting the day with a cup of the good stuff was just what I needed.

"Nng!" I grunted at the first sip. Unfortunately, I'd neglected to buy sugar or cream.

Beyond that, I whipped up some eggs to call breakfast, showered, put on some of my new clothes, and got on my way. I'd only managed to wake up an hour before 0400, so it wasn't like I had all morning to dawdle.

Just to say, Galactic Standard time, for those uninitiated, is comprised of twenty hour days. An hour is one hundred minutes, and a minute is one hundred seconds, but the seconds are half as long as an Earth second, or, rather, a Terran Coordinated Universal time second. This means that the days are actually longer than Earth days, but certain other parts were shorter. It was complicated, so I just kept the clock on my omni-tool handy.

Getting a move on, I took a taxi to the station closest to where I had to meet Kraine. I'd been hoping for some greater instruction than just "show up or go to jail", but I just assumed that not getting a proper explanation for things was to become a pattern in my life and rolled with it. It was 0356 when I arrived at a relatively small building with some big hologram sign on the front. I couldn't read it, although it appeared to be posted in three different languages, but it was certainly the right address. The side entrance was where I'd been told to wait, so that was where I found myself standing.

Taking advantage of what precious time I had left, I leaned up against the wall and wished I had something to waste my sorrows upon. Some people might smoke a cigarette at this point, or maybe they'd do a crossword. They'd do something to pass the time instead of moping like a sad plant. Unfortunately, due to the stupidity and randomness of my situation, all I had to do was fiddle with my omni-tool. Something in the back of my mind told me that being seen screwing out with a gadget wouldn't make a good first impression on my new boss, however. I just stood there, then, waiting like a chump.

At 0302, the door to the place finally opened. I turned to look, seeing a gray turian with green facial markings poking his head out. He eventually noticed me.

"Parker?" he asked.

"That's me," I nodded.

"Come on."

I followed him into the place, finding a rather dreary interior to the building. Dull gray on the floor, cold steel metal on the walls, no windows, no pleasant smells, and certain no friendly faces. Eventually, we entered a small room filled with things that I didn't care to take full notice of, where he handed me a gray jumpsuit. I took it with a retracted grimace, praying silently that it wouldn't smell before noticing that my guide was wearing the turian equivalent. Thankfully, I hadn't dressed in anything more than simple pants and a t-shirt, because the jumpsuit didn't leave me much room for comfort. I'd made sure to wear a pair of working-class shoes that had come with the clothes courier, which the turian noticed.

"Good choice of footwear," the turian spoke in gruff voice that reminded me slightly of some character in an anime I might have liked. "The only other pair of boots we have were made for an asari. They'd be a little tight on you."

I didn't return his conversation, instead going for facts. "You Kraine?"

"Dolis Kraine," he said his full name. "Chief sanitation worker for Bachjret Ward, Blocks 900 through 909. The populace dumps their shit on the streets, and it's my job to pick it up."

The emotion in his voice struck me somewhere between sarcastic and unenthused. He'd obviously been in the business for a while now and probably didn't like it all that much.

"What'd you do?" he asked as he pulled down what seemed to be one of those things people use to pick stuff up off the ground. This gave me an inkling of what it was we were going to be doing, but that wasn't as important as the question my new alien cohort had just thrown my way.

"What?"

"To get stuck here- What'd you do?"

"Came here the wrong way, stood in the wrong place," I sighed as I took the grabber he offered me. He then got his own before reaching into a box and pulling out a pair of large, disposable bags. They reminded me of those large black trash bags we'd use to throw away heavy stuff and leaves, except they were clear and not quite as heavy. He handed me one of those as well.

"A proper vagrant then," he almost laughed. "Good. For a while there I thought they were sticking me with a petty thief or someone actually dangerous."

This was supposed to be insulting, but I wasn't much for arguing semantics. For what little good fortune I still had in my life, though, he went ahead and got to business instead of going on with the lame insults.

"Here's our job, kid. We're gonna walk every damn street from here to the other end of the 909 Block and pick up every speck of trash we see on the ground, and then we're gonna walk back and do it again. Then, several hours from now once we've returned here, we're gonna do it _again_. Sound simple enough?"

I sighed one more time for good measure.

…

Several hours later, and by that I mean several more than the several Dolis mentioned, I arrived back at my apartment and practically fell into the shower. I smelled terrible, primarily because I had been walking around the Citadel with a poorly ventilated jumpsuit on over my jeans, and secondarily because I had forgotten to buy deodorant. I ran hot water over me until it turned cold, which, in a remarkable turn of events, actually took more than five minutes. Once I finally got around to smelling less bad in some degree, I went ahead and collapsed onto the sofa bed I hadn't bothered to roll up.

I didn't move for the vast majority of the rest of the day. I ordered food, nursed my aching feet, and watched stupid videos on the extranet until I could finally fall asleep.

I wasn't feeling any better for the second day of work.

"I'm surprised," Kraine said to me as I walked into what I'd discovered was the public works building for that sector. "I thought you might have given up and headed over to lockup."

To be honest, I don't know why I didn't.

"Let's just move."

The walk from the 900 Block to the 909 Block was pretty basic in terms of mapping. It was laid out like a grid, with most stuff that might take up more than one basic building spot having tunnels through it so as not to impede walking traffic. There was, remarkably for me at the time, a lot of walking traffic on the Citadel. I had thought that with public services like rapid transit in use, people would just ride around everywhere.

Then again, I guess that wouldn't be very healthy, would it. Outside of Donny, the vast majority of people I saw while walking the streets were in relatively good shape. Five years before, I would have stuck out like a plank of wood on a brick house in that crowd. I'd been chubby as hell at twelve. That was why I took up martial arts, to fend off the bullies. Thankfully, I grew out of it. As my extended family liked to point out at family gatherings, I had somehow gone from a cute, tubby little boy to a sadly scrawny teenager. Even with martial arts, I wasn't exactly bulky and muscular. That took actual effort.

Also, just like in the games, there seemed to be an overt lack of kids on the Citadel. I don't mean kids like immature or relatively young people. I mean actual small children. I think the youngest person I saw the entire time I working sanitation was a roughly sixteen-year-old girl. Of course, I highly doubt she noticed me as I was picking up a food wrapper off the ground in my sweaty jumpsuit.

The days passed slowly. Several times I wondered if time was even moving at all. By the end of the third day I was officially homesick. By the end of the first week I was ready to blow my stack. I made a pittance from the work, with the rest going towards my fines. Thankfully, I worked so many hours in a day that I actually was earning a good amount of money. I wasn't going to be buying any houses or sports cars, but I noticed that, were I to stick with it, I thought that I could probably hang around and get something of an existence going.

I thought that because, to be perfectly honest, something in the back of my head seriously believed that whatever was back on Earth telling these cops to keep me here wasn't something I could go home to. No contact from my "father" during that first week all but confirmed it for me. I thought that C-Sec would have probably passed along the omni-tool contact information to him. Hell, I didn't get any outside contact for quite a while.

…and, when I did, it wasn't what I'd been expecting.

###

It was nine days after my arrival on the Citadel that I received a message.

_Parker,_

_Please make yourself apparent at Kano's Klub on the 14__th__ day of July, 2180, somewhere between 1600 and 2100._

_Your friend,_

_Jimmy_

2180 was the year, just to clarify. That was one hundred and sixty-seven years removed from my original timespace.

As for Jimmy, I would have been lying if I'd said I had any friends with that name. The only Jimmy I ever knew was a guy back in middle school who was my partner for a few science projects, but he moved to Seattle before we went to high school. On the other side of possibility, I knew where Kano's Klub was. I walked past it every day on the way to the taxi lot.

Checking my omni-tool for what the date was in terms of Earth, I found it to be none other than July 14th. Checking the time, it was only minutes until 1600 hours. I had a decision to make, then. On one hand, I could ignore this strange message from this person I didn't know and just keep on praying that my life would sort itself out. Alternatively, I could go meet this person at a club and, if anything, get out of the apartment for some reason other than work.

Thirty minutes later, I was standing outside the club in that $700 jacket I'd arrived in, showing my ID to a human bouncer.

"You most certainly are_ not_ old enough to go inside," he informed me before looking down at the datapad he was holding. I couldn't help but scowl at this news. "However, you _are_ on the list, so I guess you're in. Just try to control yourself. Tell the hostess your name and she'll show you to your table."

He let me by, at which I entered an establishment that was nothing less than a classy nightclub. There were people dancing on a stage in the center of what was a large room. Up some stairs to the left was a bar that overlooked the dance area. Opposite the bar was what appeared to be a more relaxed area of sofas and tables. The music was alright, not to suggest that I was much of a fan of the insatiable appetite the 22nd century seemed to have for dance-techno. I'd heard worse, though.

"Welcome to Kano's," an asari spouted as she glided over to me once I was inside. I was slightly taken aback by this, at which I noticed that this was actually the first time an asari had spoken to me directly since my arrival.

The blue, tentacle-headed, all-female asari were, to put it simply, the mediators of the galaxy. They had been the first to find the Citadel, and have been the driving force of intergalactic politics ever since. If turians were the high-grade steel that made up the galaxy's engine, then the asari were the oil that kept everything running smoothly. Legends of promiscuity aside, I knew that any asari old enough to be working was an asari that was probably twice my intelligence and quintuple my age.

That's right. _Quintuple_ my age. That was the most amazing quality of the asari in my eyes. They could live to be nigh on a thousand years old. Considering that I thought living across a single century would eventually get dull and boring, living across an entire millennium sounded like a living Hell.

"John Parker," I said my name, hoping to get this over with as fast and as painlessly as possible.

"I know who you are, Mr. Parker," the blue woman smiled at me before gesturing me towards the seating area. "Follow me, please."

I did as much, trying not to feel like every person we walked past was judging me as we went. The place seemed to have a primarily human clientele. It was unnerving, walking into a nice club and having the people know who I was even though I'd never been there before. There were several points where I debated just turning around and making a break for it. I didn't think they'd actually try to stop me. That message had been good-spirited enough. Why, then, did it feel like I was getting into something I'd prefer to avoid?

I kept waiting to be seated by my asari guide, but she made no attempt to lead me to one of the tables or sofas. Instead, we passed right through and proceeded towards the rear wall of the complex. It wasn't until we were rather close that I realized there was a stairwell leading up in our path. Once again, I thought about making a quick getaway from what was starting to look more and more like some kind of trap, but, in the end, I followed the hostess up the stairs, around a corner, up some more stairs, and into a large, comfortable room where only two people waited. One was another asari, standing and watching the goings on beneath us on the dance floor through a window I hadn't noticed from below. The other was a drell, something I hadn't expected to see.

"That's all, Kinra," the drell spoke. My guide stopped, bowed, and turned around to return to the main floor. This left me feeling awfully uncomfortable. Drell were not a race I'd seen before in my brief tenure on the Citadel, and this one didn't seem to be in the mood for good impressions. He strode right up to me and immediately got in my face. His skin was a shade of scarlet that clashed with the club's dark interior, and his black, marble-like eyes made me bite my tongue nervously.

"You bring any weapons?" he asked me. I wanted to laugh.

"Weapons? If I could afford a gun, I'd be able to pay my goddamn fines," I couldn't help but be a little snarky in the face of the unknown. It was better than stammering like an idiot, I guessed.

"Don't get sassy, human," the drell barked once he'd backed up. He then turned to the watchful asari. "He's unarmed."

"Let him sit."

I narrowed my eyes, taking note of the long sofa that ran the length of the room. The asari was standing before it, choosing not to seat herself just yet. The drell put a hand towards the sofa, though he didn't any seem less callous than he had initially. I walked warily by him and set myself down, placing my hands idly in my lap and keeping my body upright. My first instinct was to look at the asari, but I abandoned that thought quickly in favor of safely staring at the wall across from me. Something told me that the drell wouldn't take kindly to me ogling his boss.

"How are you settling in?" the asari asked. Her voice was smooth like a cup of fresh cocoa, but that wasn't a rarity for her race.

"I didn't come here for small talk," was my quick dismissal of whatever train of thought she might have been engineering.

"What did you come for, then?" she asked, audibly sitting down. There was a bit of distance between us, something I'd set up intentionally. Thankfully, she hadn't tried to move any closer. "You certainly aren't old enough to drink."

"Just trying to get out of the apartment for a while," I sighed for what might have been the hundredth time since my arrival, leaning back into the sofa and closing my eyes. "Dare I say, though, I thought there might be food?"

"Oh? Ayrton, go get our guest something to eat."

"Of course."

I peeked and eye open to watch the drell exit the room. His walk suggested that he wasn't very happy about it, but he disappeared down the stairs nonetheless. I could only assume that his respect for his boss's orders were more important than his need to keep her safe. This, in turn, suggested that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself… or maybe it just said that they didn't consider me any kind of threat.

"Who's 'Jimmy'?" I asked once we were alone, still refusing to actually look at her.

"You wouldn't have come if I'd put my real name," she countered. "Call me Sen."

"Okay, Sen," I bit. "Why am I here?"

"Only you can answer that."

I scowled. Wiseass bullshit didn't work on me at my most impressionable times, and it certainly wasn't going to work in the midst of my dimensional displacement.

"Okay then, let me rephrase that. _Why did you ask me here?_"

"Because I wanted to talk to you," she informed me finally. Internally, my need to punch something suddenly went on the rise. Unfortunately, that drell wasn't back with my food yet.

"Well, you're talking to me," I pointed out the blatantly obvious for no other reason than to be a douchebag.

"But are you willing to listen?" she countered with what I considered to be more bullshit. "I could gab on all day about what I think of you and what I know about your situation, but would it actually mean anything to you if I did?"

I glared sharply in her direction, responding to her words about knowing my situation. What did she mean by that?

"That fully depends on what you say," I told her as the drell finally appeared with a sandwich on a plate and a drink in a cup. I took it from him. "Thank you."

"You're going to be contacted once your time as a government employee is up," she informed me as I bit into the sandwich. It was turkey, much to my relief. For a moment, I'd worried that it might be some alien freak meat. "They're going to tell you a lot of things, some of which won't make much sense. Once they've done that, they're going to tell you to do things for them. Are you following me so far?"

"Not really," I shrug. "Continue anyway."

"…Actually, that's all for now."

I finally looked at her, my mouth full of bread, meat, lettuce, and tomato. Her skin was more gray than blue, if you ask me, but that might have just been the light. Her face had black marks around the eyes and down the sides. Her mouth was curled into a slight smile, giving off an edge of knowingness. On her was a standard black frock, nice enough to be upper-class and simple enough not to overwhelm anybody who wanted to feel welcome.

She was playing a part, and I was the one to be fooled.

"May I leave, then?" I asked once I'd downed the large bite of sandwich.

"Won't you finish your food before you go?"

Without a vocal response, I folded the remainder of the sandwich and shoved it as cleanly into my maw as I could. I then poured the remainder of the drink in to join it, creating an odd-tasting combination that was at least possible to swallow. My throat hurt slightly as I downed it all, but that was all. I was done.

"Cheerio," I nodded with false politeness before getting up and leaving the club, though I made sure to shoot the drell a hard look as I went.

That had been much more difficult than I'd let on. That asari, Sen, definitely knew something about me. I was hoping that she might just tell me, but, as it was, I wasn't so lucky. At least it answered a question, even if it was one that I hadn't put much thought into until that moment. Had I been brought to the Citadel for a reason? Well, if Sen's words were anything to go by, then the answer had the possibility to be yes.

Only time would tell…

* * *

**Thanks for reading! I know that WAAAAAY too much stuff happened in this chapter, but it all needed to happen and I didn't want to split it apart into really short chapters. Rest assured that Dolin and Sen will play parts in the story's future... at least I hope they will.**

**Review if you feel so inclined! All praise and criticisms are accepted!**


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